Mike Tardiff
Columnist
Before I met USM baseball coach Ed Flaherty, I already knew a great deal about him. I knew about his playing career at the University of Maine, his two national championships, and the storied baseball program he’s put together here at USM.
The last issue of the semester wouldn’t be complete without dreams of the rest and relaxation that USM students are yearning for. Here is a list of books for your travels, your beach bag, or to join you in that hammock.
Professor Matthew Killmeier
Communication & Media Studies
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
“Great book, especially for those familiar with the movie.
You see them day in and day out as you pass by them in the line for sandwiches or the cash register. But do you know who they are? We wandered through Aramark services on both campuses seeking out some of students’ favorite cafeteria staff. Not all of them were forthcoming, including everyone’s favorite, Jan, in Gorham, who shooed us away.
Everyday on cable news networks across the globe stock tickers are showing more red. The “almighty dollar” is doing little to earn its title as it drops in value, and the already cash-strapped state of Maine is sharpening the budgetary machete for a new round of cuts.
Name: Shannon Kynoch
Year: Senior
Major: Social Work
Sport: Basketball, Lacrosse
FP: You’re from the great state of Vermont, which is known for its cheddar cheese, do you enjoy cheddar cheese?
Shannon: Very much so, cheese is one of my favorite foods.
The annual Bachelor of Fine Art student show, Produce, is showing at the Gorham Art Gallery now. The BFA degree is the most involved studio art degree offered at USM, and the 15-artist group show showcases the art majors as they graduate from concentrations in sculpture, ceramics, photography, painting,and digital art.
Hello USM Students,
This is your first report from me, Ben Taylor, your new Student Body President. While I’ll be working on some things over the summer, I’ll save a lot of the important stuff for these letters when we come back in the fall.
Let me first congratulate outgoing Student Body President A.
USM lost an important member of its staff when IT director Keith Witherell passed away unexpectedly last Tuesday.
Witherell, who was 49, had been with USM since the mid ’90s, when he was hired to teach computer courses in the School of Business. Witherell eventually left the classroom for the IT help desk, and was promoted to the position of IT director in 2006.
Women’s Outdoor Track
Landry honored by LEC
Senior Hattie Landry (Acton) was named Track Athlete of the Week for her efforts during the week of April 14-20. During that stretch, Landry led the Huskies to a second place finish at the Bowdoin College Aloha Relays with two first place finishes in 100-meter hurdles and the long-jump.
The Savages
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Directed by Tamara Jenkins
Unfairly speaking, every generation has its signature style of film.
The 1970s: gritty, grimy, orange, and fascinated with the streets of New York City.
In the 1980s, characters cleaned up and moved out to Los Angeles.
This summer, one USM alum is taking a gamble that he hopes will land him in Washington, D.C.
But the trip is more than just a few states away.
Political science graduate and Springvale resident Tom Ledue is taking on Maine congressman Tom Allen in the Democratic Party primary this July.
Summertime and beer go together like peanut butter and jelly. What’s better than relaxing at a camp fire with a group of friends enjoying a nice summer ale?
Since this will be my last brew review for the year, I thought I’d send you into summer with an idea of a few choice summer offerings from some local breweries.
Trade is the world’s oldest form of commerce, but in today’s capitalist society, it has taken a back seat to the monetary system of exchange.
But in Portland, thanks to The Trade Exchange, barter is back, and it’s better than ever.
Located on Center Street in Portland, The Trade Exchange acts as a bartering middleman, facilitating trade between area businesses by setting up a credit-based system through which members can exchange goods and services.
Three students sit in the back corner of the room, laptops in front of them. As two more amble over, somebody whips out a power strip from their backpack, allowing all five to plug their computers into the nearest outlet. Two begin playing “World of Warcraft”, while others simply check their e-mail and surf the web.
Three alumni of different decades are being featured this month at the Area Gallery in Portland’s Woodbury Campus Center. The show, “Drawn to Abstraction,” features various levels of abstract art.
Featured are Wolcott Dodge, ’86, Sean Hasey, ’97, and Ryan Wight ’07.
Taurus
April 21-May 20
Hot Pepper
You are a bit proud of yourself for a minor accomplishment this week. Stay tuned in and remember there are still hurdles ahead of you, and while you may feel relieved, it is important to keep your eyes on the prize.
This week, give your teacher an apple if you’d give them a hot pepper on ratemyproffessor.
More than 50 students protested the Husky Film Festival last week after only one of 10 submissions was not chosen to be shown at the event.
The film not chosen by the selection committee was titled “Shit Hard,” and its supporters turned up holding signs and wearing white T-shirts with variations of “Live Free Shit Hard” written on them.
Midway through production on Saturday night, the handful of Free Press staff still awake to copy-edit pages decided that this was our “exposé” issue.
Full of attempts to uncover what’s going on around here – telling why Words + Images published without images, how USM enrollment might actually be aided by a national recession and printing “confidential” email correspondences between administrators – we felt a little bit, well, dirty.
The USM budget is a mess.
The administration says so. Faculty and department heads say so. PricewaterhouseCoopers, an independent firm hired to perform an audit on the university, agrees.
At a recent Student Senate meeting, interim Provost Mark Lapping spread his hands out over a row of 2-seat-wide Luther Bonney tables.
In the Gorham field house, a handful of men and women are pulling giant carbon-fiber rods out of a large bag.
One takes a starting position, a long pole held in front of him as he squints toward the pile of thick blue mats and takes in his breath.
His face goes taut and his fists white as he sprints forward, plants one end of the pole in a trapezoidal groove in the floor and is launched up, up, over a suspended crossbar. He crashes down, sinking into the mats, and rolls off to join his teammates, who are stretching on the green rubber field house floor.
It’s Wednesday night: pole vaulting practice.
One of the more technical and intimidating events in track and field, pole vaulting doubles as a physics lesson in energy conversion – the pole, whose flexibility and length varies according to the athlete’s size and skill, is a tool used to turn a short sprint into a high and graceful flight.
The relationship between the athlete and the equipment is about as intimate as it gets.
“It is a rush the first time you feel that pole bend,” says senior Adam Haggerty.
Senior Taryn Clark has a different, but equally vivid memory. “The first time I did it, when the pole bent, I went flying straight backwards.”
Until this year Melissa Rivet and Megan Higginbotham had never played lacrosse.
Now, just four months removed from their introduction to the sport, they’re playing in a Division III college program.
That might seem like an anomaly, but it’s nothing unusual for Sue Frost’s seven-year-old program.
Without any interscholastic high school lacrosse in the northern half of the state and only pockets of interest elsewhere, Frost has continually had to supplement her rosters with athletes who have never before played the game.
Jeffrey Lipton stands in front of a crowd of about 40 beside his 22 ceramic pieces as classmates, professors, and local professionals fire questions at him.
They ask about form and function, they tell him his presentation, which sits on pine shelves in the middle of the gallery, is too heavy. The questions continue to be swiftly directed at him but Lipton doesn’t break a sweat.
This man is an art student.
Although most of a public speaking class would shiver at the thought of being put on the spot about their own creations, that is the point of this type of critique.
Does it ever get to you?
You know, whatever that “it” may be: the long winter, traffic, the pseudo version of NASCAR that goes on in the parking garage after classes, or even something as simple as the price of gas?
Well, it has gotten to me. My family says I am obviously in a “mood,” and I am not sure if I disagree.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to be a provocative SOB,” said interim Provost Mark Lapping, as two members of the Free Press pawed through the plans and letters supporting the 26 programs to whom suspension has been threatened.
Plans and evaluations like this should happen on a more regular basis, according to a number of administrators, including Lapping.
He said that the Board of Trustees requires that programs undergo a review every seven years. Those reviews, he said, have not formally been occurring.
In their temporary positions, Lapping and interim President Joe Wood have made bold moves to incite change in the university, primarily in response to the financial crisis that has become more and more apparent over the past year.